A Rose By Any Other Name
by LirielLee
Summary: More than anything, Mary Lennox fears becoming a selfish, vain, empty-headed creature like her mother. To prevent this she runs away from her schooling in London to join the war effort. Her thoughts linger on her boys, Colin at school and Dickon called up to war himself and her secret garden. Life brings painful lessons and sometimes it brings exactly what we want most.
1. Chapter 1

I have had this story in mind for awhile now, I have 7 chapters partially written and ideas for several after that. So I do have an end for this and will get there eventually, but for now my Merlin story is my main focus when I have time to write, so I'll fit this in when I can. I love the book and this is what I envision for the years after it ends.

I don't own anything because I am not as awesome as Francis Hodgson Burnett.

**A Rose By Any Other Name**

Chapter 1: The Letter

_Dear Uncle Archie and Colin,_

_I am sorry to have to do this to the two of you. You know I love you both very much, you are my only family and you gave me the only loving home I have ever known. I greatly regret that what I am about to do will hurt you both, but I must follow my own path._

_I am going to join the war effort. I can no longer sit by and study deportment and art and pretend that there is not a greater world out there. The Glittering world of society that you keep pushing me to accept will never make me happy. I want to be of use to the world, not just be another pretty face in a new gown._

_I will write to you when I can, but for obvious reasons I cannot give you an address to write to me. I am so sorry to grieve you, please try not to worry overly, I will be as safe as I can be. I feel this is something I must do, please try to understand._

_I love you both,_

_Mary Lennox_

And so Mary Lennox left behind the London she despised and the moors she loved to serve in the war effort. As she had excelled at studying French in school she was able to convince the young secretary at the Red Cross office that she was a French orphan who had been sent to London before the war to study. She lied about her age and gave her name as Marie Girard. The Great War had been going on for more than two years by that time and those in the medical field were in great need, Mary was accepted into the Red Cross as a Nurses Aid without any questions about her background and was quickly sent out for the minimal training she would be given before being sent to a medical facility.


	2. Chapter 2: Another Day Done

Mary tried to roll the tension out of her shoulders as she finished another shift. She was tired and had seen things now that would haunt her forever, but she had never regretted her decision to run away and join the Red Cross nurses. Whenever she became overwhelmed by the suffering around her she would distract herself with memories. Sometimes she thought of her time in London, the tedious balls, the shallow gossip of the other girls, the arrogance of the upperclass boys living off of their names. Remembering her disgust with that life reaffirmed her decision to find a true purpose in her own life and not just become what her mother had been; a beautiful refined creature too selfish with thoughts of balls and dresses to care about her only child.

Other times she simply remembered the secret garden and her happy times there with Dickon and Colin. When she was surrounded by the smells of blood and disinfectants it was difficult to recall the scent of the roses in bloom and the moist soil as she weeded. Although the scents were a vague memory now, she could still clearly see the garden in her mind. The ivy covered walls, the lilies and roses, the purple crocuses that signaled the arrival of spring, the old swing swaying in the breeze. Yes, she could envision it all, even the three children who had filled its walls with laughter. Oh, how she missed them.

Thoughts of her two boys always brought tears to her eyes, although she would never let them fall. She had made her decision and she would not regret it. Still, she wished there was a way to talk to them both, she longed to know how they were doing.

She and Colin had been at different schools in London, but they had always found time to get together and the two were more like brother and sister than cousins. Mary knew it had hurt Colin dreadfully when she had disappeared, still she knew he would understand her need to act and not just become another society girl. He had his schooling and his father to keep him in place. While Mary enjoyed reading and learning, she had never like school and the restrictions that came with it. Proper education for a girl was so much more confining than the choices offered to the boys. Colin loved school and would surely continue on to a university and someday inherit his father's title and all that came with it. She knew he would use it all for the good of those around him, he would have the means to act in the manner he wished. Mary thought of her own inheritance in trust in a London bank and knew that she was able to do so much more good out here on the lines than if she had stayed and did what proper young ladies were expected to do; namely marry a rich young man and maybe support a charity or two with the occasional fundraiser.

The sight of another soldier being carried in the doors as she walked out to go to her room made her think of her other boy. Dickon, sweet happy Dickon. She sighed. It was impossible to lie to herself that thoughts of Dickon had not influenced her decision to be here. She had been informed when he had been called up but had not been able to return to Misselthwaite in time to see him again. Her heart ached at the thought of Dickon lying in the trenches feeling so far away from the moors he loved. He would be brave and strong she knew, but she wondered if his sweet heart would survive this kind of constant attack. She loved him, she had loved him since she was ten, before she even knew what love was. When she had been sent away to school she had been sad to leave the garden and the moor, but she had known she would see them again, that they would still be there when she came back. She had been terrified of leaving Dickon because there was no guarantee that he would be. At thirteen she had just been starting to understand that the love she felt for Dickon was not like the love she felt for her uncle or her cousin. She had been vaguely aware that her leaving for school meant nothing would ever be the same between them. By the time she returned she would be seventeen and he would be nineteen, no longer carefree children. She would be expected to be a proper young lady and find a husband and he may have already found a country girl to love and raise a family with. She could never begrudge him this happiness if he had found it, but she knew her own heart would never move on. She had met no men in society to compare to him; his honesty, his compassion, his cheerfulness had been the ideal she would hold all other men to.

"How was the ward tonight?" her friend Becky asked as she entered their dorm room.

"Eet vas quiet", she answered with a smile. Nine months into her time her Marie persona was so ingrained now that she didn't even have to think about answering with the correct French accent, it just happened automatically. Still afraid that Colin or her uncle would be trying to find her and drag her home she had decided to just keep the name and accent that she had used to enlist. Sometimes she amused herself by imagining everyone's reactions if she suddenly started speaking Yorkshire instead of French. Ah well, at least her forced time in school had given her the means to escape detection as Mary Lennox. Although she doubted that this was the type of trip to France her teacher had expected the lessons to be used for.

The thought made Mary smile as she slipped into her cold narrow bed. A few hours of sleep and then she would be back on the ward.


	3. Chapter 3: Awake

**Chapter 3: Awake**

Dickon regained consciousness slowly, gradually becoming aware that the sounds around him were not the sounds of the trench that he had been used to for so long now. He could hear low voices and soft moans of pain, not the crash of mortar and the echo of screams that he last remembered. He felt fuzzy and lost, where was he exactly? Recognizing that he was close to panicking, he forced himself to take several deep breaths and keep still.

He tried to open his eyes to view his surroundings and found that he couldn't push them open, the world was completely dark. This relevation let to another round of mental panic, but again after a few minutes he was able to gain control of himself. If he couldn't use his eyes he would simply have to use his other senses.

Dickon took another deep breath and focused to the scents the breath brought in him. He could smell alcohol and antiseptic, blood and death. The two were familiar scents from the trenches, but he didn't smell the muddy earth and smoke from mortar and artillery.

He moved his fingers slightly and felt a coarse material under them and recognized that he was laying down on something semi soft, so a blanket and bed maybe. Gaining confidence he continued to move his hands over his body, carefully noticing bandages and twinges of pain that hinted at multiple injuries. Finally he let his hands move up to his eyes and found them covered in thick gauze pads, he let out a relieved sigh. At least he knew why he couldn't see or open his eyes right now, he had sustained some kind of injury to his face and eyes. The fear that he might be truly blind was still with him, but there was hope now that it was only temporary.

Dickon let himself relax , so he was injured but had been treated and … he must be in one of the makeshift hospitals that hovered near the front lines.

Footsteps approached and he heard a reassuringly clipped English tone address him.

"So Private, awake at last."

"Yes, ma'am," was his hesitant reply.

He listened intently as she gave him a run-down of his injuries while checking his bandages.

"The doctor's aren't positive yet how bad the damage is to your eyes, but everything else is healing fairly well. We will check your eyes in a few days and if you can at that time then eventually you'll be sent to the recovery ward."

Dickon flinched at the casual way the nurse spoke of the uncertainty of his ever seeing again. As she walked away he lost himself in the memories of the beautiful sights of life that he might never see again.

A few days later his body was starting to feel better, his injuries were healing and he was more rested than he had been any time in recent memory. The doctor had chosen not to check his eyes yet, wanting them to have a few more days without any stress, but Dickon felt he was starting to adjust to only using his other sense to know what was going on around him.

He mostly ignored the talk of the other recuperating soldiers around him, choosing to live in his memories and thoughts for now, they were a happier place than anything else around him. Still, it wasn't always possible to block out the sounds of pain and death around him and his new bed neighbor was quite a loud complainer.

"Ain't this ward quiet," the boy began his next rant of the day.

"I wouldna know," Dickon answered. "Tis the only one I've been in."

"I just came to this one after I needed another surgery, before I was in the upper ward and boy did we have a good time there, this one seems too depressin to me. I know this is where we're supposed to recover and all before we're well enough to move up, but I gotta say it's too dull here to push a man to get better."

Dickon made a noncommittal sound, doubting it was very different between any of the wards, all full of soldiers injured in body, mind and soul and just waiting to be well enough to be sent back to the trenches or waiting to die.

"And the nurses on this ward," the boy continued, "they can't compare to the angel up there."

"Ah, you'd be talking about Marie," another soldier commented from across from Dickon.

Dickon cocked his head in curiosity, he hadn't heard any mention of a Marie before, but then he had to admit that he barely noticed the nurses at all, too lost in his own thoughts and memories.

"You've seen her too then?"

"Aye, little French girl that was educated in London. She's a beauty all right, I think almost every man that comes thru that ward has proposed marriage to her."

Dickon drifted back out of the conversation, there was only one girl that he thought of anymore. Mary Lennox would be a beautiful young woman now he knew. He tried to imagine what she would look like, but the picture in his head was still the energetic 13 year old that he had last seen before she was sent to London for school. Golden hair gleamed in the summer sun as they worked together in the garden that last week before she left. He remembered the hot tears she had cried when she found out that she was to be sent away and her plea to Dickon that he would care for their garden while she was gone. It had been that last week together in the garden when Dickon had realized that he loved her. The knowledge of her departure had shaken him more than he could understand; but watching her kiss her roses goodbye with tears falling from her light-filled hazel eyes, her light curls brushing against the flowers as she leaned over them, he finally knew. He understood then why her leaving was so different for him than Colin's had been the previous year. He loved her, her sweetness, her fire, her overwhelming passion to hold onto and protect what she loved. He loved her with all the innocence of a young love and he had faithfully kept his promise to care for the garden until the day he had left to go to France.

He realized that she would be seventeen now and done with her education. Even now she might be back at Misslethwaite and would see that he had broken his promise, the garden had been left alone for over a year now and that broken promise was just another hurt now to add to his time in the trenches. She would not blame him of course, but still he felt he had let her down.


	4. Chapter 4: A Sound Like Any Other

Just a short chapter this time, but don't worry we're getting closer to the action of the story. Also, I can't write Yorkshire, so please forgive my poor attempt at it, I simply try my best.

**Chapter 4: A Sound Like Any Other**

Another day passed filled with anxious thoughts and more prodding by the nurses and doctor. With a resigned sight Dickon sat himself up in his bed and waited for the lastest report from the nurse on how his healing was progressing. The doctor had checked his eyes and then replaced the guaze over them. He had looked under all of the bandages and had seen no sign of infection and so everything was cleaned and rewrapped and the doctor had given the nurse his notes before moving on the next patient.

"You're recovery is progressing nicely Private," the nurse informed him. "Your arm is setting properly and the gashes from the shrapnel are not infected and are almost fully healed. The Doctor thinks you should be able to start taking the bandage over your eyes off for a several hours a day in a few days to slowly let them readjust to the light. I would think that you will be moved to the upper ward by next week."

He nodded to her and heard her move on to the next bed. He reveled at the thought of being able to take the bandages off finally and was more grateful than he knew how to express that his eyes were not permanently damaged. When he had first realized he couldn't see after the explosion his thoughts had been on the sights he would never be able to see again, namely his beloved moors and the garden in summer. And, he admitted to himself, the sight of Mary. If he lived through this he had always expected that he would at least be able to see her again. He couldn't know how she had changed over the years, maybe she wouldn't want to see a poor moor boy anymore or maybe she would be with some rich lord, but at least he would be able to see the woman she had become.

He had no delusions that that would be happening any time soon. If the doctors thought he could be healed up in less than two months he would be treated and sent back out to the trenches. Only more serious injuries that warranted months or years of healing were enough to send a soldier home now that the war had been dragging on for over three years.

The sound of excited hellos called him back to the ward. He could hear a number of the injured men calling out to someone that must have just entered.

"Marie, I've missed you so."

"Marie, over here, do you remember me?"

"Marie, how about a game of chess?"

"Marie, are they moving you up here or are you just visiting?"

"Marie, Bobby told me all about you and I'm thrilled to finally meet you."

Dickon heard a beautiful voice with a French accent answer all of the calls as she moved around the room. "Ah, so this is the lovely Marie that I keep hearing of" Dickon thought with a chuckle. He was able to pinpoint where she was in the room by the excited voices that seemed to follow her. He leaned back in his bed already drifting back to his dreams when he heard one soldier tell her that he was thinking of coming up with new symptoms for the doctor so that he would never have to leave her.

The girl laughed in response, a pure sparkling sound that had Dickon jolting upright with a gasp. Before he could register a conscious thought he heard the doctor calling imperiously for the aide and her accented answer moving further away.

"It couldna be," he moaned to himself. "She's na here, she's a proper English lady now, not some French nurses aid." He continued to explain to himself that he hadn't heard what he thought he had, that it was just a foolish reaction because of his daydreams. It was just that he wanted to hear the sound so badly that he made himself imagine it. Yes, that must be it; that was the only reasonable explanation because otherwise he would not have just heard Miss Mary's laugh.


End file.
